You Are My Sweetest Downfall
by singsongsung
Summary: Oneshot. Blair-centric; Blair/Serena. Friendship, sisterhood, and something like love. How stupid and heartbreaking, that they spent years fighting over one boy, when they should have been fighting for each other.


**A/N: **Read it? Review it, please.

**You Are My Sweetest Downfall**

_You're my sister. I loved you first._

_-- ­_Anne Brashares, from _The Last Summer (Of You and Me)_

Over the years of her short (but it feels so long, stretched out by someone else) life, she's become quite gifted at recognizing what levels she hits in those dangerous, downward spirals she tends to go on, and all the while somehow manages not to acknowledge her own disintegration. It would be an impressive feat, really, if it weren't so fucked up. It's buried somewhere deep in her subconscious, and it's starting to try to send alarm bells back to the perfect version of herself she presents to the world. She's starting to think she might be losing it for good this time.

It's autumn in New York, leaves crunching under her feet, beret perched jauntily atop her head, crisp air that stings the back of her throat when she inhales too quickly. It feels like it might snow already; the air smells like it. Once upon a time, when she'd had her life all planned out, she'd intended that she'd be in New Haven right now. She'd be living off campus with Nate and wearing argyle sweaters and cute glasses and getting stellar marks. Instead she's in New York, wandering through Central Park in a jacket that's too light for the chill that that wind whipping around her carries, sinking further and further.

She has always been perfect on the outside. And she has always been one big dysfunctional mess on the inside. She doesn't know when it started, when all she wanted was to be skinny and pretty and she started pressing everything else down deep inside. It was probably when she was too young to really remember it happening. It's how she's been conditioned.

Nonetheless, she feels like she's reached some new kind of low. How messed up is she, _really, _betrayal and mixed-up emotions, that she fell in love with the girl she'd always called her sister? It was wrong, unacceptable, almost incestuous. She laughs to herself as she thinks that maybe her childhood obsession with British royalty has leaked into her reality. The man walking by her casts her a mildly alarmed look at the cackle she lets out and her smile fades as she begins to think that she really is losing her mind.

Her world always revolved around Serena, but there was nothing unusual about that. Everyone worshipped Serena van der Woodsen, from Blair's own mother to complete strangers and absolutely everyone in between. As a child she was precocious and outgoing, irresistibly free-spirited, where Blair was bossy and stubborn and reserved. When she got older she had boobs and forever-long legs and untamed, gorgeous hair and a personality that just begged to be loved, where Blair struggled with her body and the way the simple browns of her hair and eyes fell flat next to Serena. Blair pulled back from the world, ordering it around from the distance, while Serena opened herself up to it easily, dispersing as much love as she got back, putting it under her spell. There was no competition. Everyone adored Serena, everyone feared Blair. That was their unchangeable dynamic.

The one thing that changed their relationship, the one thing that made it possible for Blair to forgive Serena all of that unintended perfection she possessed, was that Serena's world did _not_ evolve around Serena van der Woodsen. It evolved around Blair Waldorf.

Serena was the one who sought her out when her throat was dry and sore and her mouth tasted bitter and she was sitting on her bathroom floor. It was Serena who held her hand through all the important moments of her childhood. Serena, who always made Blair brave and never let her back down, never let her hide away. It was Serena who floated away from Nate and the position of queen bee, leaving both to Blair because she knew how badly she wanted them. While the rest of the world gushed over Serena, it was Serena who promised Blair that she was beautiful, swore it solemnly and earnestly and repetitively, until Blair almost believed it.

They were both so similar and so different that they seemed to form one complete person. They'd known each other since birth, but they did not feel each other out, didn't evolve to compliment one another. They were both too set in themselves for that. It was the natural way things turned out, in the perfect way of people that are just _meant to be_. They couldn't have worked any better way. Blair planned and Serena executed, Blair talked about sex and Serena had it, Blair coordinated events and Serena shone at them. Blair demanded material things and Serena was content without them. Blair wanted and Serena received. She could charm anyone and Serena could make everyone laugh. They were blonde and brunette, short and tall, their physical appearances contrasting. And in between it all Blair wished for ways to meet in the middle and Serena found them, chased them, tackled them and pulled her best friend after her. Blair thrived in the winter, with snowflakes on her tongue and a different coat for every day; Serena was summer personified with sunny hair and ocean-sky-blue eyes and her constant glow, and they found their in-betweens in the realms of springtime and autumn.

All of that considered, it made vaguely bitter sense that Serena had died in the summertime.

Blair, who used to called her eating disorder "stress-induced regurgitation "(Serena was the only one who could ever for the word out of her, demanding it, pulling for it, _bulimia_, face it head on, I'll fight it with you), has come to despise euphemisms since her friend died. She hates people who say sorry for her _loss_ or that Serena had _passed on_. Blair is drowning in the world, fighting for survival without her other half, and she wants people to be frank with her, at the very least. Serena _died_. She has to tell herself that, demand it, pull for it, or she'll never recover from it – she _has_ to face it head on and she knows it.

The problem is that she doesn't have anyone to fight it with her.

She's so lost. She hates it, this helpless feeling, always has. But she can't hide behind anything this time, like her minions or her power as the ruler of a high school or a romance-that-could-have-been with Chuck. She's heartbroken and she's confused: she has lost something that she could never quite define.

They were skilled at breaking each other's – and consequently their own – hearts. When Serena wanted Nate, Blair sought after him with a vengeance, forcing him into a steady relationship. And once she had him, Serena stole him away in one moment at one wedding with that _easiness_ that she always took things. Blair thinks about Nate, in hindsight, as property, because she will always love Nathaniel Archibald but that was what he _was_. He was a competition between two girls in denial, and Serena won, because she was denying even more. It was never _about_ Nate. It was about one another.

Blair could have forgiven her for it, and eventually she would. Despite Serena's constant ability to snatch things away, she always made a conscious, valiant effort not to. Blair could almost see the desperation, the way Serena's eyes must have glittered in the setting sun, the way she must have gulped down champagne in an attempt to escape the reality of her own feelings, the way she had to have insisted to herself that she loved Nate best. The problem, the part that broke Blair's heart, was that she'd run away afterward.

Everything. That's what they were supposed to mean to each other. They had never, ever abandoned one another before. When they were kids they often refused separation, clinging to one another. In the Hamptons during their summers Serena would stomp her feet and demand sleepovers and they'd curl up close in Blair's king-sized bed, using up only about a sixth of their mattress, teddy bears in between them. They'd giggle until they drifted off, usually at nearly exactly the same moment. Serena kicked at night, leaving bruises on Blair's shins, and Blair developed the habit of clutching Serena's hand instead of a teddy bear as she slumbered. As they got older, they realized they couldn't share every moment, but that didn't stop them from trying. They were such definite people that the lines between them could never really blur, as much as they wanted them to. So instead they played with their lines, nudging and shaping them until the pieces of themselves could fit together like a puzzle.

When Serena left her, all alone to face her parents' divorce and her eating disorder and the way Nate slowly drifted away and the girls at school who had questions she didn't know the answers to, she decided it didn't matter. She stood in front of the mirror, her crown (headband) in place, and said those words to herself. _It doesn't matter. She doesn't matter_. So she loved Nate and she ruled school and she threw up nearly everything she ate.

Serena's return only cemented how very much it _did_ matter, whatever they were to each other: everything. Blair felt her other half fill her up again, felt her world start to spin again around the person at the centre of its orbit. Serena was there, with long, straight hair and sad smiles and regret. Blair wanted to hug her and bitch at her and never let her go. And in the end, she did just that.

Serena was her first kiss. That was natural, right? Serena had insisted that it was the day they tried it, eleven years old and facing one another on Serena's bed, clutching pillows and giggling nervously. Girls practiced kissing on each other all the time. Serena, full of the experience that Blair would absorb and translate into knowledge as she always did, had already kissed boys. She was the brave one, certainty in her blue eyes, who leaned in and pressed her lips to Blair's, who opened her mouth and coaxed Blair to do the same. It felt good, so Blair closed her eyes and relaxed into it, and they kissed for a while until they finally started laughing, collapsing against each other. They leaned against one another and watched _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ and they didn't talk about it again.

But it happened again. Again and again, over the years. When Serena met Georgina, the other girl was such a daredevil, and matched Serena's spirit so admirably that Blair got jealous in the simplest, most automatic way. Georgina was a little bit evil and very much clever, and she had no qualms about cracking open a bottle of _anything_, pouring it into glasses, and daring Serena to kiss Blair. It made more sense than daring Blair to kiss Serena, because Serena's inhibitions were near-limitless. And Serena would always oblige, crawling across the floor, hands and knees and biting her lips, and kiss her. Every time it happened they both got a little more daring and touchy-feely and it'd last longer, Chuck Bass staring at them in something bordering on worship.

And one time, when they were lying on the floor, feet tangled up and hands in each other's hair, they let go of each other like they always did and Serena whispered _I'm not drunk_. And Blair never was either, so they both knew what that meant.

Over the years, Blair kissed other people. Penelope and Iz, Nate over and over again, and Chuck, of all people. But it was different. The girls happened because of late-night slumber party dares, Nate because of her insistence and his obliging due to the pressure he was under from the Captain, Chuck because she was confused, so confused, as to why losing Nate hadn't devastated her like it should have.

She and Chuck had such undeniable chemistry that he should have settled it all, but she stayed confused because every one of those kisses with every one of those people – Chuck included – was accompanied by a flash of Serena's eleven-year-old earnest expression behind Blair's closed eyelids.

They were friends, very best friends. Sisters, even, they told themselves, as if that label would somehow force it to be off-limits. They had their pattern, their system of being. Blair took care of Serena, and Serena stepped up and took care of her during the bigger things, the ones that really mattered. But it changed, between them. Now, when Serena came over in the middle of the night and crawled into Blair's bed, it wasn't because of a stepfather whisking Lily away, it was because of the tequila Blair could always taste on her tongue and whatever feeling Serena had followed their, having gathered courage from liquor. And sometimes taking care of Blair, proving she was beautiful, involved a lot less shopping in the stores and a lot more stripping each other in dressing rooms; making Blair eat evolved into cupcakes and whipped cream and muted giggling at the feel of each other.

Nonetheless, they were stupid about it, and stupid in the same ways, so there was no way to even each other out. They flipped and flopped and screamed at each other; Blair slapped Serena and Serena tore her headbands in half and they ditched one another, only to make up later over Audrey and kisses flavoured like chocolate croissants. Blair wasn't sure why they did it. They were good at getting what they wanted, especially when they wanted the same thing. It should have been easy. But she was scared of it, so scared of it. Maybe because it was her father's sexuality that tore her perfect family apart, maybe it was her desire to build that perfect family up again, starting with herself. Serena, she knew, was terrified of love, because love was Lily's excuse for every horrible thing she did. Serena liked hook-ups and no strings and everything easy. So they fought one another off in that bitter way of theirs, the way that always involved silences that spoke louder than words could have and matching tears sparkling in their eyes and never admitting they were wrong.

No one could tear Blair down or build her up as much as Serena could. So she took it, she let it happen, because there was nothing there but two pure extremes: love and hate. And they both knew the hate was really love in disguise. They'd watch _Charade_ and the title alone would make Blair want to scream and cry so she'd pin Serena against the couch instead and try to force them into admitting things to one another, but they never quite made it there.

She thinks that they might've had their chance at college. They stood on Yale's campus holding hands, clinging to one another, and Serena kissed the top of her head and Blair glimpsed a future. Serena was dead set – now Blair sees the irony, the foreshadowing, and she hates it – on sharing her Page Six success with Blair. Even when Blair said it couldn't be done, she shook her blonde locks stubbornly and she made phone calls and flashed smiles until she got what she, what _they_, wanted. Yale together. It would be them in argyle sweaters and short skirts, living together off campus, figuring out what it was really like to _be_ together. Blair realized, with a jolt of shock that hit her hard and fast, that Serena was standing up and fighting for them. And so did Blair, in the ways she could, all the subtler ones. Loudly and publicly, she joked about experimenting with lesbianism in college, and Serena laughed so hard Blair was surprised that the smile that bloomed on her own lips at the sound didn't stretch out her face, and everyone else rolled their eyes at the world that existed solely between them, the world they couldn't enter. It was a best friend thing, that's all. They were so close, everyone knew. Like sisters, they said.

How stupid, how moronic, how _utterly idiotic_ of them to believe they'd last forever because they loved each other so much, that they would disappear at the same time, like those moments of falling asleep together when they were little kids. How heartbreaking, that every time Serena got brave Blair would hit back with biting words and scorching glances, and that every time Blair got brave Serena would brush her off in favour of something or someone else or run away as fast as her feet would take her. How stupid and heartbreaking and painfully poignant, the way they fought over one boy for years and years when they should have been fighting for each other.

Now she has that boy they fought over. Or she could, anyway, if she had any desire for him. He cried openly at Serena's funeral, looking like his world had just fallen apart, and two weeks later he sought her out with eyes that were less cloudy but still stricken with grief. Chuck had stopped by once at some point to ask her if she was okay and she'd sent him away, like she had with her mother and her father and Dorota and her shrink and even that boy from Brooklyn who had shown up for some inexplicable reason. She let Nate in, let him follow her up the stairs, ignored him as she flopped back onto her bed and huddled under the blankets, where she'd been hiding away. Nate stood awkwardly in her room, which still smelt like Serena and contained touches of Serena and carried Serena's presence, and whispered about how Blair was the only one who could understand how he felt.

She could see what he wanted. He wanted to cry together, to mourn together, to grow even closer, to let Serena's death bond them. He wanted them to fall back in love, into something that they could both understand, and to live out that kind of fairytale she'd ached for long ago.

Blair had kicked her feet out from her covers and pointed to her toes. _There's chipped polish on my toenails, Nate_, she'd told him wearily. She ached for him, but not as much as she ached for herself. He made that confused face, the one that Serena used to giggle at and kiss away. Blair's heart thumped hard in her chest and she told him simply, _I'm not the girl I used to be. I can't be perfect anymore, Nate. _He'd started talking again, arguing, choking on his words, insisting that Serena wasn't what made her perfect. She shook her head and buried herself under her blankets and waited until he left. That wasn't the point, but of course he couldn't understand. Serena wasn't who made her perfect. Serena was who reminded her that it was okay _not_ to be.

She'd never, ever accept the thought, never mind the reality, of chipped polish on her nails before Serena's death, but now she embraces it, wants it to never fade away. At this point, there's only tiny, ugly bits remaining, but she won't clean it off. They painted their nails together, matching colours, the night before she died. Blair wanted red and Serena wanted pink and they met in a middle with a shade that rested somewhere in between. It was the colour on their toes when Serena dragged down the zipper of Blair's skirt, when Blair tugged Serena's shirt up over her head, when their toes clenched up in anticipation. It was the colour on their toes when they woke up in the morning with their feet and their whole selves all tangled together, when they went skinny-dipping in the ocean and Serena screamed just because she felt good. It was the colour on their toes when they kissed goodbye, the colour of the toenails of the feet in Serena's wedges when she turned around, winked, and waved her fingers teasingly before slipping into the car that would drive her right into her death.

It was such an anti-climactic death for such an exuberant, vivacious girl. Blair hated it on Serena's behalf. Serena probably would have shrugged it off, in reality, but Blair didn't care. She, the girl who planned nearly everything, had honestly thought that she'd be the one to go first. She thought they'd die the tragic deaths of Shakespeare or harlequin romance, she thought she'd succumb to nothing from her eating disorder (_bulimia, say it, fight it_) and that Serena would eventually get alcohol poisoning and meet her end on a floor or a couch or a bar somewhere. They would be lonely and awful and ugly, their deaths, and then they'd meet up some place in between heaven and hell. Strangely, she wasn't afraid of death, not in those ways. It seemed _predictable_, and that's exactly why it never happened, because Serena picked Blair up off the floor and said the right words and called doctors even when Blair begged her not to, and because Blair was always there, getting Serena home and nursing her hangovers and taking her to the hospital even when Serena pleaded that it wasn't necessary. They saved one another, like they always did, so it was something entirely out of their control that snapped Serena out of the world.

Life like that, like hers, shouldn't be able to die that way. And life like Serena's, life that compliments the summer like it was made to be there, shouldn't be snuffed out in the season she adored so much. It should have happened in slush and hail and blizzards that knocked out power. It should have been dramatic, it should have had more meaning…and, Blair thinks, it should have been _her_. Because she was supposed to go first, to never have to feel like this, to never have to cope. Blair was full of a life that never got lived; if Serena had stayed she'd live dangerously and crazily and badly, but at least she'd throw herself back into it. Blair was certain now that the sole purpose of her existence was to keep Serena safe, and that Serena's official job had been to make sure that Blair knew that she _mattered_.

And now she feels useless, with an empty stomach and bags under her eyes and nowhere to go with her life and chipped nail polish on her toes.

Blair set the goals, and Serena stumbled toward them. She would run hard and fast toward them, then whirl around and grab Blair's hand (_c'mon, B!_) and yank her along. When Blair ordered the world around from afar it rarely listened, so Serena would scream instead and fight tooth and nail, kicking hard like she used to in bed when they were little girls, like she still did when they were older. She's losing her plans, her definitions. She used to be able to love, to feel it, to see it in Serena. Her best friend, her sister, her soul mate. The only person in the world who seemed to love her back full force, the only person in the world Blair would really apply the term _lover_ to. She needs someone to fight for her, to help her find it again. She is so good at the technicalities, at the strategy, but she struggles with fighting the war because that was never her part to play.

She won't get it, won't be able to do it, and she knows that, and she almost thinks she deserved it. If her job was to protect Serena, and Serena's dead, then she failed, didn't she? So she can't possibly matter anymore, can't deserve anything at all.

It starts to snow on her in the middle of Central Park, big white flakes in mid-September. It makes her think of how she always wanted a kiss by the duck pond in snow like this, how she had it laid out, just waiting for Serena to execute it. Around her, everyone looks up in the sky in awe and Blair wants to scream and cry, wants to have her breakdown right there. Winter is setting in mercilessly and for once she doesn't appreciate it. The winter weather has free reign already, descending down to wreak havoc. She stares at the sky, gives it her best glare, demands the universe to _stop_.

But of course it doesn't, because Serena's gone (_no, she's dead, say it, face it head on_) and summer has faded away more abruptly then ever before in Blair's lifetime.

And there's no one to fight back.


End file.
